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Saturday, December 04, 2010

The Big Read List, in which I officially lose my honorary Brit status

The Big Read list has been passed around quite a bit, this past week or two, so I thought I'd join in. It's a list of 100 books; the BBC believes most people will have read only 6 or so off this list. They probably have a point. I doubt you'll see anyone outside the book blogging community getting all excited about the list. The average Joe probably has only read what's required or the most popular tripe, right? Anyway, I'm going to alter mine a little.

Bold black = I have read it

Purple = I read part of it but did not finish

Green = I own a copy and plan to read it

** = A personal favorite from this list

Red = You've got to be kidding. Who comes up with these lists and why this book?

Blue = Would like to read this one, but don't own a copy

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen**

2. The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien - Here is where I lose my honorary Brit status. I haven't read this and still haven't summoned the interest, although I keep saying, "Maybe someday." It's the British favorite from this list. Or, maybe I should say "favourite".

3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4. Harry Potter Series - J. K. Rowling (I've read 3 of the books)

5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee**

6. The Bible

7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8. 1984 - George Orwell

9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens**

11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

14. Complete Works of Shakespeare

15. Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier**

16. The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien

17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18. Catcher in the Rye - J. D. Salinger**

19. The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20. Middlemarch - George Elliot

21. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams**(also got to hear the author do a reading from this one)

26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh**

27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28. The Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33. Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis

34. Emma - Jane Austen**

35. Persuasion - Jane Austen

36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis

37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres

39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40. Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne

41. Animal Farm - George Orwell

42. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown

43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46. Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery

47. Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50. Atonement - Ian McEwan

51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52. Dune - Frank Herbert

53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58. Brave New World - Alduous Huxley

59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime- Mark Haddon

60. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66. On the Road - Jack Kerouac

67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding

69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie

70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72. Dracula - Bram Stoker

73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74. Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

75. Ulysses - James Joyce

76. The Inferno - Dante

77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78. Germinal - Emile Zola

79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery

80. Possession - A. S. Byatt

81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro**

85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87. Charlotte's Web - E. B. White

88. The Five People You Meet in Heaven - Mitch Albom

89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton - Although I'd never heard of Enid Blyton, till recently, I'd like to read something by her. She seems to be a childhood favorite of many.

91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94. Watership Down - Richard Adams

95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy O'Toole

96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas**

98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (Saw the musical in London and watched the movie - does that count?)

Aw, only 34. But, this list clearly makes the statement that I need to challenge myself to read some of those that I own but have not yet read and finish a few others.

I think we can safely assume it's an age-based ass kicking. I probably should have read at least 50 by now, though. It's a good list, for the most part. I don't quite get why Mitch Albom and Dan Brown keep ending up on those lists, though -- nor The Lovely Bones, which I have done everything in my power to avoid.

I'm glad you agree with me about those books! I'm not even willing to try them, although I did buy a copy of the illustrated DaVinci Code to look at the pictures. I waited till I found a copy for a quarter, though, and I thought the pics were disappointingly small. I'm pretty sure I re-donated it -- if not, it'll be going soon.

Thanks. I thought the list had some interesting little flaws. Like, why would you put down the Chronicles of Narnia as one item and then The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe as another? That's just one of several things about that list that baffled me, although it's better than some I've seen.

I managed to get through 61 of the books on this list. I did break down and finally read Dan Brown's books and while they were better than I expected, they're not that great either. I refuse to read Albom's book and can't believe it made this list.

Anyway, thanks for giving me an exercise to stretch my brain with! I've been reading you for a few weeks now and love coming to see what new things you have up...especially the pictures of your fur girls!

You have to wonder. Did they throw in a few bestsellers for grins? Kind of odd!

40 is impressive, for sure. I don't usually do well with these lists, either, but partly because a lot of them tend to be heavy on bestsellers or award-winning books and I don't honestly pay attention to either. I read what interests me and that's that.

I can maybe almost see The Lovely Bones (although I abandoned it halfway through - far too sad for me) but The DaVinci Code? I have read it but it's ridiculous. The only reason I can think that it was so popular is that no one had heard of that premise before (it's been around).

The premise of The Lovely Bones really, really bothers me. I'm not sure why. That and the sad factor have kept me way the heck away from it.

I've read a Dan Brown book. I don't think it was anything great. I'm still wondering if they felt obligated to toss in some modern bestsellers but . . . why? I'd like to know the idea behind the list. What makes these people think the average person has only read 6? Where did that number come from? Why did they choose the titles they chose?

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